2015 Spring Newsletter and Catalog PS: It’s time to place orders for your 2015 Hop Rhizomes. See back page for varieties and price. The Voyage to Baltic Porter Fermenting Beer with Fruit By Bob Peak and Joe Hanson-Hirt by Sean O’Connor We’ve had a lot of interaction with Sean as a customer here Imagine yourself in the 19th century departing London at The Beverage People including judging on some panels at in a sailing ship to travel across the North Sea. Your eastward competitions locally and as a member of the local brew club - the Sonoma Beerocrats. He’s been an active brewer since 1992 when journey turns north around Denmark and then back to the his roommate was the general manager of Boston Beerworks southeast. Perhaps your port of call is Malmö at the southern across from Fenway Park in Boston. Their head brewer turned tip of Sweden. A seaport for centuries, that city lies just across him on to a homebrew shop in Cambridge, MA. He is a BJCP the Øresund strait from Copenhagen. After your stop in Malmö, recognized judge and brews as often as possible. sail further east and then turn northeast into the Baltic Sea. Next We asked him to provide our readers with some of his insights port of call: Riga, now in Latvia but part of the Russian Empire to brewing with fruit and his article is a great starting point. at the time of our imaginary voyage. As you go ashore, will you Sonoma County provides year-round access to a be looking for a pub that offers a light lager? Even a pale ale? variety of seasonal fruit. It is the constant availability of high No! It’s time for a Baltic Porter. As I write this in February, the quality, local, fresh fruit that inspired me to start fermenting weather report for Riga is a high of 31°F with a low of 27°. No beer with fruit. I have never been a fan of most fruit beers wimpy, pale beer today! traditionally available in brew pubs. Most follow the formula of taking a basic American Wheat Ale or Blonde Ale and adding The Porter family in the guidelines of the Beer Judge a fruit flavoring of choice. These raspberry, blueberry, or peach Certification Program (BJCP) has just three members. The first, flavored beers seem to persist on beer boards to satisfy the Brown Porter, is the one most associated with the famous English palates of the most entry level of craft beer drinkers. I have porters of modern times; beers like Fuller’s London Porter and brewed the occasional version of this style and they can be quite enjoyable, particularly on a hot, summer day. But that is Samuel Smith Taddy Porter. Those beers are usually about 4 to not what this article is about. 5.4% alcohol by volume (abv). They are rich, brown, malty ales. Using fresh fruit to make beer is a completely different process The next category, Robust Porter, takes things up a notch with and more challenging then adding a bottle of flavoring into abv running in the 4.8 to 6.5% range. These richer, often darker, your keg or bottling bucket. porters include many of the famous American interpretations of Some variables to consider are the type of fruit, beer style, grain bill composition and desired end product. Do you Baltic Porter continued pg. 2 Beer with Fruit continued pg. 5 See Page 3: Beginning Water Chemistry about 36 years ago, after he got married. He first Max Arnold attempts came about because he had a desire An Interview by Joe Hanson-Hirt for beer that was better than the bland domestic beer available at the time. He wanted beer that Max Arnold has been one of our customers for was fruitier and stronger tasting and thus started the last three years. At 67, he runs a busy law producing his own various types of ales. Like most practice with the help of his sons. In his spare of us, including myself, there were early successes time, he is an avid homebrewer. Since Max and disasters. He was able to brew beers a bit brews almost every Saturday, his face and his better than what he could buy, but eventually passion for brewing quality ales have become drifted away from homebrewing. well-known around the shop. He likes to say: “Stop brooding and get brewing!” About 3 years ago, after a long hiatus, Max resumed brewing. He started out at An Australian native, Max is originally from Drouin, Victoria near Melbourne in The Beverage People with beginner brewing south east Australia. He first started brewing, Max continued pg. 5 1845 Piner Road, Suite D - Santa Rosa, CA 95403 (707) 544-2520 BALTIC PORTER continued from page 1 the porter style. These include such modern stalwarts as Sea of Troubles Baltic Porter (EX5) Anchor Porter, Sierra Nevada Porter, and Deschutes Black 7.75 lbs. Light Dry Malt Extract Butte Porter. 0.75 lb. Carastan Malt 0.5 lb. Special B Malt Then we come to today’s style: Baltic Porter. These 0.25 lb. Caramel 120L Malt beers are even bigger, working well into the range we might 0.25 lb. Midnight Wheat Malt consider a “winter warmer.” Alcohol levels range from 0.25 lb. Chocolate Malt 5.5% to a whopping 9.5% abv. As the name suggests, many 0.25 lb. Brown Malt of the commercial examples are made in the countries that 1 lb. Extra Dark Belgian Candi Syrup D-180 border the Baltic Sea: Sinebrychoff Porter from Finland, 1/2 tsp. Chalk 1/4 tsp. Calcium Chloride Okocim Porter and Zywiec Porter from Poland, Baltika #6 1 tsp. Irish Moss Porter from Russia, and Carnegie Stark Porter from Sweden 0.40 oz. Magnum Hop Pellets (60 min.) 12.6% 20.1 IBU among them. Other examples may be encountered from 2.00 oz. Saaz Hop Pellets (30 min.) 3.4% 9.5 IBU places like Latvia, Germany, and Norway (which is not on #1728 Scottish Ale (fermented cool) or #2007 Pilsen Lager the Baltic, but is “Baltic adjacent”). O.G. 1.089 F.G. 1.020 IBU 29.6 Just as high hopping rates in India Pale Ale helped Mash at 152°F for 45 min. 60 min. boil adding hops as directed. Add candi syrup last 15 min. of the boil. historic examples make the long journey from England to All-grain brewers substitute Light Dry Malt Extract with 6.25 India, the Baltic Porter style was influenced by shipping. lbs. Vienna Malt and 6.25 lbs. Munich 6.5L Malt and mash for 60 Both this beer and the similar Russian Imperial Stout started minutes. with beers made by English brewers and intended to survive our imaginary voyage into the Baltic. High alcohol helped When Bob and I set out to write this recipe, we started preserve the beer and use of dark malts provided flavors that by looking up the BJCP style guidelines for Baltic Porter. That gave us a great starting point for a style neither of us had brewed helped mask any flaws. While stock ale was added to some before. This is a beer with a lot of malt complexity, so the first historic examples adding a slight sour note, Baltic Porter grain we thought of was Special B, renowned for adding burnt has moved toward a cleaner character in the centuries since sugar, raisin, and other dark dried fruit character. We didn’t want that time. After the historic development of lager beers in too much direct caramel sweetness, so we decided on Caramel Europe, Baltic Porters have mostly moved to fermentation 120L for deep, dark caramel flavor. To get the toasty-toffee notes with lager yeast for a clean, crisp character. we decided on one of our newer malts Carastan. As per the guidelines, we choose a debittered black malt, Midnight Wheat, to Often using a Munich or Vienna malt base, these keep the roastiness and acidity restrained. We couldn’t help but beers are enhanced with debittered chocolate or black malts. add a bit of Chocolate Malt for a little more richness. Brown Malt Some examples also use caramel malts or sugar adjuncts. was used to get a bit of nutty character into the background. We Brown and amber malt may be found in examples that made a last minute decision to add a pound of Extra Dark Belgian mimic historic styles. The beer is dark brown and sometimes Candi Syrup to add notes of dark stone fruit, toffee, and roast opaque, but never black. The head should be tan in color, coffee for even more complexity. thick and persistent. We chose traditional Continental hops and only did Flavors and aromas follow a pattern much like bittering and flavoring additions. Even though we live in one of the hoppiest counties in the country, hop aroma has no place Imperial Stout with rich maltiness, dark chocolate, roast, in a Baltic porter. For all-grainers out there, Baltic porter is an and toasted caramel. Dark roasted flavors should always interesting style as it calls for something other than your typical stop short of a burnt note, just as in the finest German black pale base malt. Baltic porter is made with Vienna or Munich malt lagers (schwarzbiers). There are often aromas and flavors of as the base. We couldn’t make up our minds, so we used half and fruits like dried figs, raisins, cherries, and prunes. Caramel half and it should make a great blend.